Morning Coffee: The worst thing that can happen when you exit banking aged 29? The Credit Suisse hiring plan

We've warned before about the inadvisability of leaving a banking career before it's bedded down - which today can take anything from 20 to 25 years. James Adams, a former bond analyst, appears to be those warnings personified.

Adams, a graduate of Wake Forest University in the US with an MBA from the business school attached to the University of North Carolina, landed himself a series of bond trading and analysis jobs in the late 2000s. Therein, he earned "six figures." Until the financial crisis prompted him to leave finance aged 29 in 2009 and earn...$2.13 (£1.50) an hour, plus tips as a waiter in a waffle bar.

Sounds bad? Adams' fall from financial grace seems to have been driven by both masochism and an urge to do penance. "I'm willing to admit I played a role in the most horrific financial drama in the last 70 years," Adams tells CNBC. When the Waffle hirer asked Adams if he'd been sacked because of the financial crisis, he replied in the affirmative: "Yeah. Firms like mine caused it." He was subsequently made to scrub tables and told, "If you can clean off this spot, you'll be of more value in this job than you were in your last one."

Fortunately it all ended happily. Not only is Adams now working in finance again, but he wrote a book about his waffle-times and sold the film rights. Leaving finance is not so bad, as long as you can monetize your exit.

Separately, Helman Sitohang, chief executive of Credit Suisse's beloved APAC division, has been speaking about all the hiring he wants to do. Sitohang told the South China Morning Post he plans to hire 800 relationship managers in Asia by 2018 to help expand the bank's local private banking and asset management business. He also wants to expand Credit Suisse's broking business in mainland China. We have a three year expansion plan from this year until 2018. We are not going to be affected by quarter to quarter market volatilities,” Sitohang declared.

Meanwhile:

53 year-old Conservative MP says he was on a higher salary working as an investment banker in his twenties than he is today. (Sunday Times)

Goldman Sachs' fixed income salespeople are being told they don't have to make sales on each call. This is causing consternation. (Business Insider)

New activist investors' claw back plan calls for bankers to "set aside" a large proportion of bonuses for a full decade. (Financial Times) 

Tom Hayes claims to have made £600k spread betting. (Reuters) 

Crispin Odey, the London hedge fund manager, with an impressive summer house made a 22% loss in his €1bn Odey European fund in the first two weeks of March. (Financial Times) 

Vladimir Putin's got his very own ratings agency. (Bloomberg) 

HSBC didn't move to Hong Kong because doing so could have triggered a clause forcing it to refinance $157bn of debt. (Financial Times)

I founded a bank to make my children save their pocket money. (Principles and Interest) 

Pigeons wearing backpacks with air quality sensors are now flying around London. (Wired) 

Ex-Goldman banker is still selling his Trump hats. (AFR) 

Photo credit: Waiters by mac_filko  is licensed under CC BY 2.0.